


this is home (just getting to know you)

by Not_A_Valid_Opinion



Category: Sam & Max (Comics), Sam & Max (Video Games), The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Character Study, Episode: s03e05 The City That Dares Not Sleep, Gen, Lesbian Character, M/M, MAJOR devils playhouse spoilers, Post that episode but including the crimefighting ending, You had one job, abe is only mentioned dw i hate him too, bc i love her??, discussion of it and stuff like nobody ELSE dies, discussions of sexualities (eventually), each chapter explores more of how the ending affected them, hyperkinesis (Max), if i get around to it it will lead into the cartoon with the geek, no different from what we see in that ending though, when i say "major character death" i just mean descriptions of death and, why are the relationship tags "max and sam" im pissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29056053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_A_Valid_Opinion/pseuds/Not_A_Valid_Opinion
Summary: “So…” Max started, eventually, and Sam could have cried just for hearing him speak again; “wanna stop some crimes?”Sam and Max adjust to being Sam and Max after the finale of The Devil's Playhouse.
Relationships: Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek & Max & Sam, Max & Sam (Sam & Max), Max/Sam (Sam & Max)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	1. phrase your love like a question

**Author's Note:**

> the beginning is a bit of a catch-up before getting thrown into the fic, especially to help if you cant remember which ending is which lol. it's been 11 years and ive never gotten over this but i replayed the game thanks to the remaster of season 1 and ive been getting into it again, thank you hyperfixation

Life tended to move on without asking permission first. At least, it did for Sam.

It had all happened so fast. The toys, the ending. Max had almost died so many times before (the reckless goof) that when he… when Sybil told him there was no coming back from this, it hardly even registered. He’d kept thinking, _Naw. Max’ll pop back up. He always does._

Did. 

Sam needed to clear his head. He needed to… something. To leave. Everyone was watching him, waiting to see his sadness, something beyond expressibility. Smoke was still crowding the lab from the failure of the cloning machine, and in the moments where he felt everything, he felt nothing. 

His feet took him out of that lab without his mind picking a direction, too despondent to choose a way. He just walked, looking at nothing where he used to take in everything. He’d passed bent street meters he used to note with a fondness on each passing. He’d passed buildings left standing and buildings reduced to rubble. He’d passed row after row of cars of each and every color, but it doesn’t matter, because even if he wasn’t colourblind- he’d see the world a sickening sort of grey, now, and from now on, because his little buddy was gone. 

He’d ended up at the pier, nearly collapsing against the railing once he recognized where he’d subconsciously headed. Ahead of him, the Statue of Liberty stood proud and tall and thoughtless to his tight grip on his hat, now resting against his chest in a moment of nothing left. 

Max was gone. 

_(He couldn't be. Max'll pop back up. Max'll be fine. Max-)_

The thing was- Sam was right, to a degree. Max did always pop back up, in one way or another.

The time machine’s arrival and Max’s stepping out, unfazed, was something of a sentimental Godsend that Sam almost couldn’t believe he’d doubted for a second. Because there he was, smiling away like… like nothing had happened. Like Sam hadn’t just gone through everything, like Max hadn’t… 

He’d looked away. Something had hurt too much about everything going back to normal, like nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had happened, at least, to Max- but something had happened to Max that hadn’t happened to him, either. 

Max clearly knew it, too. That there was something distressing about normalcy, for once. The lagomorph stopped blabbering, the grin even falling from his mouth. 

There was a silence between them that Sam had never felt before. Usually, it was always jabber between them, something to keep Max’s short attention span kept and Sam’s busy mind occupied. They’d known each other for so long that the rhythm they’d made together was seldom broken. Lately, though- with the psychic toys and the toll it was taking on both Max’s physical strength and Sam’s emotional mentality- it had been difficult to keep things as upbeat and explanatory as they once were. 

But as they stood there, in that much needed moment of quiet- there was nothing to explain. Not when they both knew, somewhat better than the other. 

“So…” Max started, eventually, and Sam could have cried just for hearing him speak again; “wanna stop some crimes?”

* * *

… He should have doubted more, maybe. 

“Is that… Max?” is the first thing Sybil says when they meet up with her at the hospital. Her voice is incredulous, and yet somehow impressed. She looks tired- she did just give birth, after all. Sam was curious to see what the kid looked like. He’d told Max that they should go visit the baby while on the drive over, and the lagomorph had been confused. 

_“What baby?”_

_“Sybil’s. She’s in the hospital right now. She’s probably already delivered it, but that just means we’ll get to see the little stone liberty sooner.”_

_Max still looked confused, but he’d nodded. The first thing they did after anything else they could have done was stop a robbery- with all the destruction still around from the Eldritch horror that had become of his little buddy, crimes like that were rampant. It had been fast, but it had been_ fun. 

_It had been them._

_Then, Sam remembered- Sybil’s water had broken. She was in the hospital._

_The drive had been peaceful, which was a change for them, but Max was probably just tired from all the time travelling he’d done, and then the robbery after. Hell, Sam was exhausted, but he wanted to make sure Sybil had a safe delivery. It was the last thing Max had wanted before he-_

_Wait. No, that’s not right. Max was right next to him in the car, fiddling with the tommy in his hand-like paws like any other day before their days started to become unlike any other._

_Sam focused on driving._

When they get there and flash their badges, they’re allowed to see Sybil right away- from what the nurse says, the delivery was safe, though she looked a little pale at whatever the delivery had _been._

They enter Sybil’s room, and even after exchanging greetings, her eyes can’t seem to leave Max’s form from where he stands by her hospital bed, watching the monitors with interest. Then he shoots her a toothy grin. 

“You look healthy!” The lagomorph proclaims, pointing at her heart monitor, which was beeping considerably fast. 

“Ya…” she says, eyes narrowed. “The delivery went well. Abe would have been here, but he can’t uh, fit inside the hospital. So he’s… Well,” she shakes her head, looking between Sam and Max before her gaze finally settles back on Max, eyes softening somewhat. “You look healthy too, Max. Um, how might that be?” 

Sam clears his throat. “We can fill you in later, Sybil. We came to check how you were doing. After all, you took quite a fall before coming here.” 

The remaining confusion in her eyes subsides considerably when they land on him. “I’m just fine, Sam. The baby is resting. He’s so cute. Little George looks just like his father.” 

“Made entirely of stone?” 

“... Well-” 

A crash sound. Both eyes shoot to the noise, where Max whistles while kicking glass under a medical cart. Sam can’t tell what it is he broke, and he thinks of asking, but Max beats him to any kind of speech when he finishes kicking the glass into the crevice and hops back over to Sybil. 

“Sooo,” asks the rabbit, “who's the father?” 

Sybil blinks. “What?” 

“Oh, right, sorry. I should be more inclusive in that assumption, how rude of me,” he fans a hand jokingly, then grins; “who's the _mother?_ Or, other mother? Good for you, by the way.” 

A nurse comes in to check on Sybil’s fluctuating heart monitor, ushering the two men out before any further comments can be made. They’re told to leave for the night if they’re finished conducting their police business, because Sybil has to rest before she can be discharged in the morning. 

“Heh. Discharged,” says Max, to that. 

They shuffle back to the car, Sam somewhat sluggishly, Max without missing a beat. 

“So, where’r we headed next? We gonna stop that painting caper? The prison breaks? The West Wind Riots?”  
“Max, as fun as that sounds, I haven’t really heard news of any of those things. But… I think we should turn in for the night. Get some rest. I mean… you must be tired.” 

Max stares at him. “Not really. Are you?” 

Considering the dirt all over Sam’s suit and fur, the bags under his eyes, and the slight wobble to his paws, he’s debating knocking the rabbit over the head for even asking. Instead, something else bites at him, and he can’t bring himself to start the car until he asks. 

“Max.” 

“Yuh-huh?”  
“... Were you joking when you said you don’t know who Sybil made that baby she’d just gone and, through the beauty of nature, delivered?” 

Max thumps his hands on the seat between his legs. He shakes his head, but there’s something slow to the movement. “Well, the Sybil where I’m from is still single, to my knowledge. And I think she's a lesbian. I could have been misreading something there, though...” 

Sam considers this tiredly. He was a smart dog, he knew, especially compared to people like Max, but timelines were messy. And according to Max- _this_ Max- wherever he was from, the Sam there was dead. That was a paralyzing thought alone, and one he’d think of in bed through a series of haunting imagination scenarios for certain, but it wasn’t where he was getting lost. If that Sam was dead, and this Max wasn’t, then this Max had to be from the future. Or the past. A different future, or a different past. One where the same things played out, only… differently. So- 

“Wow. My little buddy is from an alternate timeline,” he says quietly to himself. Max stops patting the seat cushion between his legs and stares up at him questioningly. 

“Yeah, Sam. You didn’t realize that?” he asks, sounding surprised at him. 

Sam rubs the back of his neck, thoughts piling up faster than he’d have liked because- no, he had, but it hasn't seemed incredible. Stuff like that was their forte. They’d seen past and future versions of themselves multiple times, and so he’d just thought that- well, this was that. But it wasn’t, was it? Because this was a new Max. A different Max. This Max might not have met those past and future versions of themselves, might not have ever even been those Maxs, might never have been _his_ Max. 

His breath speeds up a little. How much was different? Did his world have a President Max? Did they grow up together the same way? Did this Max ever even have psychic powers? How little experiences did this Max share with him? How differently did this Max feel about him? How-

“Sam?” 

Sam releases his grip on the steering wheel, unconsciously deathly. He turns to see his little buddy sitting with his knees pulled up to his chin in the passenger seat, ears flat behind him. His eyes were on him, and he looked… he looked _worried._

“Ah, I- I’m sorry Little Buddy, I didn’t mean to sca-” 

“Is that okay?” 

Sam closes his mouth. After a moment, he opens it again, confused. “Is what okay?” 

Max pulls his knees closer. Sam has never seen Max look so… rejected, before. “Me. Being from an alternate timeline or whatever. Because I know I probably broke one or two things in the timestream just getting here, but I…” 

The lagomorph trails off. He laughs, something soft and bitter. “You know, it took me four tries to find a universe without a Max in it, but with a Sam. I’m lousy at that. Sam’s the nerd. I mean- you’re the nerd, Sam. Not me. But we had a whole adventure together where we’d found a time machine that let us hop to various points in time. We found out that messing with it kept creating new timelines, though. Sam had fun fixing it up with the Italian Mob Band that originally owned it to do just that.” 

Max smiles to himself. He tilts his head up. A sparkle that reminds Sam so much of his own Max is there, twinkling devilishly in his eyes. “I kinda had to nurf the guy. My Sam, I mean. But then I remembered the time machine! And I… I thought if I could find a world like mine, like- like _this one,”_ he waves a hand somewhat slowly, “then I could just. Stay here. Be with Sam again. I just assumed you’d want that too, but… do you?” 

Sam stares at the little guy, feeling something in his heart shift. The failure of his heart to beat correctly in his momentary panic over what now felt like nothing has subsided, replaced with the urge to pull the rabbit into a hug and just keep him there. If not for the fact that Max usually wasn’t a hugger unless it was himself initiating the contact, Sam doesn’t make any move to grab him because the maneuverability inside the car to do such a thing was somewhat limited.

Instead, he reaches out a hand and rests it on his fluffy white head. “Max, it doesn’t make a lick of a cone of strawberry sherbet icecream of a difference to me if you remember some stuff differently from me. It’s… no different from you forgetting things all the time with your short term memory and me having to catch you up again every now and then. Right?” 

His assurance is met with a frown, and Max grabs Sam’s hand and gently pushes it off his head- though he doesn’t let go of it. Sam realizes it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince Max. Taking a deep breath, he tries again. “So, you’re not my Max. And I’m not your Sam. We’re still Sam and Max. We can meet each other again, Max. That will never not be worth it.” 

And he means it. This Max may know different things from his own, maybe having seen different things and been different places. Maybe he eats different foods, likes different movies. Maybe his favourite color isn’t orange. Hell, maybe this Max wasn’t _colourblind._

It doesn’t matter. Not when it’s still Max. 

“We’re the Freelance Police,” he adds, and Max’s ears stick back up. 

“You’re right, Sam!” The rabbit exclaims excitedly, dropping the droopy exterior to hop up in the front seat. He lets go of Sam’s hand, and the dog takes it back, noting the sudden chill of absent contact. “There ain’t nuthin’ that we can’t handle! Just- tell me one thing.” 

“Whatever you wanna hear, Little Buddy.” 

“Ya, ya- do you still like canned cheeses as much and as rabidly as I recall?” 

Sam blinks. Then, he laughs something hearty. “Of course I do! What version of me wouldn’t?”  
Max’s eyes light up. He fist bumps the air, letting out a hoot, and Sam finally feels ready to turn the keys in the ignition. 

“That’s my Sam!” Max cheers as Sam pulls the car out of the hospital lot, not having bothered to feed the meter. 

_And you’re my Max,_ Sam can’t help but think.

Sam's a smart dog. He knows adjusting will be trial and error. He knows this will take time, patience, and work. 

But since when has falling in love with Max all over again ever been considered a chore?


	2. the roof of a car, like stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Falling back in line with one another is a series of events and not exactly a linear progress, so I put three scenes in this to sort of show this and I'll probably keep formatting like this unless one scene ends up longer than the others significantly.  
> I make a pretty big reference to Poker Night, including a direct quote and a mention of the Time Machine I'll explain better in the end notes, but you don't have to have played it at all to understand what's happening. They're literally just playing poker.

“Hey Sam,” Max calls out from the kitchen, “when did we get this table? It’s all wobbly on one side.” 

Things were different. Timelines were shifted, lives were lost, lives were saved. Sam had Max again, and Max had Sam again, but their pieces didn’t fit together quite like a puzzle the way they used to. Not everything lined up anymore, and it often resulted in conversations much like these. 

“We bought it together,” says Sam fondly, leaning on the table as he walks into the kitchen. It tilts dramatically under his weight, and Max giggles, looking amused by the action. By all accounts, it was a stability flaw that made the table useless for most of the common uses a table was supposed to provide- and yet, Sam had kept it because whenever it shifted its weight under the slightest pressure, Max had laughed. 

Things were different. But not everything was lost to change. 

“Why?” Max asks, trying to push down on the opposite end and spring it back up but failing the contest of strength. Sam lets go of his end, and the table hobbles back to it’s illusion of evenness, though still wobbling under its own instability. “I mean, did we _buy_ it together while it was broken like this, or did this just. Happen,” he asks, poking at it again and watching it shake. 

Sam stares fondly at his little buddy, and the ache in his heart that used to bubble up at such questions had long since subsided. 

This was Max. A Max with a different tale of their lives together, sure, but he was willing to learn everything he could to blend in seamlessly. It was a rough transition for him to be shoved into a world so … disjointed, Sam knew, and even though it had hurt at first to be constantly reminded of the differences between his Max and this one… Sam couldn’t help but watch him with a sort of fondness with each passing day. 

This was his Max. The rest didn’t matter. Since when did they care about the logistics of things, anyway?

“We bought it fine, but then you’d broken off the other peg in a sledding incident.” 

Max leans on the table once more and releases it, resulting in multiple aggressive and creaky wobbles. With a grin half the size of his face, he turns his head to Sam, who appreciates that expression more than any kind of an absence of it could remind him. “Sounds about right!” 

* * *

Sybil moves away. It’s not the saddest day in the world, mostly because they all had plenty of notice, and Sam could figure it was coming, anyway. She had a kid now, and a husband who couldn’t fit inside her house very well. She stayed with him in his mansion most of the time these days, and the drive to her office, as she’d stated multiple times, was “killing her.” 

“I hear that,” Max would always respond cheekily, and Sybil had stopped cringing right around the seventh time. 

So, Sybil moves away to live with Abe and Little George somewhere rich and luxurious, just like she’d always wanted. Sam is proud of her, and though they merely wave goodbye, he thinks she knows that little fact well enough. 

It’s an empty little street they work on, after that. Bosco’s shop has long since closed down, and Mama Bosco was off living her renewed life in her cloned body somewhere she could be making a difference. Canada, probably. Sam wasn’t sure what had become of many of his other friends, but what remained was very little. Stinky's Diner was closed (something about collecting retirement money and workers compensation for turning into a gorilla, something of which President Superball obliged) and so were half the businesses down the road and to the left and just about everywhere Eldritch Max had trampled. Hell, even the toy shop was closed. 

Not that Sam would shed a tear for _that_ place. Max had been bummed, though only for a moment as Sam had distracted him with the promise of letting him pick whatever trash movie they could watch for the night, in an effort to keep his mind off of it. 

_“Godzilla,” Max had suggested instantly._

_Sam picked the movie._

With their town a vacant, hollowed out place somehow even more so than it used to be, there wasn’t much business to be taking in. Sam and Max’s office finishes its repairs around the time that the street starts rebuilding. New stores move in within weeks of old ones moving out, just as rough and seedy as the last, and it's a change that they take with a sort of interest. 

“The new diner down the street has a lot of vegan options,” Max notes on one of their slow nights, caseless and out of bugs to smash with his hammer. 

“You wanna eat vegan options?” Sam asks, appalled. 

Max waves a hand from where he lays on the floor, tool of destruction cast aside lamely. “No, I was mentioning it in case you wanted to burn it down to pass the time instead of wondering where to go for dinner.” 

Sam shines him a grin. “You crack me up, Little Buddy.” 

* * *

They still have the Time Machine. 

For the most part, it remains sheltered in their sub-basement, a mess of artifacts and tools of their passing beneath their office, used now for lame storage and occasional roughhousing. The Commissioner didn’t know about it- only the one that Sam and prior-Max had lost on their way to hell. They’d gone back to the docks to grab the one this-Max had shown up in, deciding that it was too cool to let just _anybody_ walk into and mess with, and also maybe because the timelines didn’t need to get any more messy than they already were or whatever. Now it sat in their sub-basement, shiny and hidden and, frankly, taking up space. 

So, they found a use for it. Max had been the one to suggest it; “When I was looking for a nice, crime-riddled and Sam-filled universe to settle down in, I found a really cool poker bar.” 

And, just like that, the Time Machine has a use once more. 

Max usually lets Sam play, but he has his turns. Sam was the better poker player, without a doubt, but not for skill- rather, Max had a tendency to blurt out his hand, and his usually unreadable face became fraught with the inability to keep a poker one. 

It’s Max’s turn one poker night, and Sam sits at the bar, coddling a soda and listening idly as he plays the table weakly but with a vigor that intimidates the other players. The rabbit’s legs are crossed on the table, and Sam can’t help but glance at the hands to see just how his little buddy was doing. 

Not well, then. Sam takes a drink as the lagomorph carries on smiling anyway, tossing down a set. “You know,” he cracks, “seeing all these aces reminds me of this dream I had where I could use a playing card to read people's minds.” 

Sam chokes on his drink, coughing to cover it up. Nobody pays him any mind. 

Max loses the game. Not unusual, and not too worrisome- he wasn’t allowed to bet their funding the same way Sam was with his track record, but he didn’t seem to care regardless. They head off for the night, back into their machine which returns to its rightful place in the sub-basement to their office.

_“We should really do something better with this space,” Sam had said about it, once._

_“Like cock fighting?” Max asked in a hopeful tone._

_“On second thought,” Sam decided immediately, “maybe it's best left as it is.”_

_“So… no to cock fighting, then.”_

They make their way back onto the streets and hop into the DeSoto. Max blabbers on about how he should be crowned ‘King of Poker Participation’ and Sam nods along, distracted. Eventually, Max notices. 

“What’s up with you? I only lost us a’hundred bucks. We’ll back it with the next case. Whenever _that_ is.” 

Sam blinks out of his stupor. He realizes he’s once again found himself pausing on the ignition, ready to drive away but- not quite. Something Max had said that night… Sam turns to him, being sure to keep his expression gentle. 

“Say, Max… do’ya think you could maybe tell me about that dream of yours you were mentioning to the boys earlier? About the playing cards?” 

Max grins. “Oh, ya! It’s neat, huh? It was like- hey, you can drive while I talk, cantcha Sam?” 

Sam realizes that he, in fact, can. He pulls the car away from the lot, rolling it over the curb and listening to the wheels grin in agony. He idly wonders if the car is still possessed, and figures it probably isn’t anymore, or he’d have noticed sooner. As he turns on his flicker to make their way back to their place- a nice little apartment only a few streets away that, very recently, they’d even run into enough money working a case (which were rare to find these days, so they’d charged double) to afford bathroom renovations and afford a showerhead and tub- Max excitedly lays out his dream. 

“Okay, so it was like, there was this card that I had, and every time I looked at it it had a different set on it but then when I touched it the thing would _glow_ and I’d feel all warm and fuzzy and not like, in the good way you make me feel Sam but like, the sitting a _little_ too close to a fire kind of warm and fuzzy; but then there were people around me an’ the card would tell me what they were thinking! And so I was like, _cool- magic card!_ But then it burned up in my hands and I felt sorta sick an’ I woke up.” 

Sam runs over a curb. Neither blink as the car juts over it, desperately wheeling itself back into focus as Sam remembers he’s actually driving this time. “Uh- Max,” he says, trying very hard to watch the road, “have you ever- had a dream like that, before?” 

Max looks between him and the road for a moment before shrugging. “Once before. This funny pair of glasses. I could see exactly how healthy a box of cereal I’d been craving before bed was, so long as I had them on. It wasn’t! But I woke up to go grab a bowl anyway.” 

Sam vaguely recalls a night a few months ago where Max had woken during the night to grab a bowl of cereal. He hadn’t gone back to bed with it, just stayed in the living room and put on trash tv. Sam had gotten out of his own half of the bunkbed and joined him once he realized the little guy wasn’t coming back for the night. The dog had just thought he’d had a nightmare, and hadn’t wanted to talk about it. That happened, sometimes- Max never really liked to talk about his dreams, something about their ‘incomprehensibility being boring to hear about’ with a mix of ‘I’ve already forgotten’ tossed in there. 

“Max,” he starts, licking his lips and already pulling the DeSoto into its usual parking spot outside their home; “Do these dreams… scare you? Or, alternatively, and perhaps a tad worse- do they hurt you?” 

Max stares up at him like he’s only hearing elevator music. “Uh…” 

Sam waits. After a while, Max rubs at his arm, a nervous tic he’d picked up in high school that he only really used when it was just Sam around. “Sam… dreams are dreams.” 

Sam isn’t having it. Not for something like this. Usually, he knows to drop things when it's clear Max isn’t up for it, but for once, Sam _has_ to know. _“Max,”_ he asks again, the name holding a warning in it. 

The rabbit slumps against the seat, ears lolling. “Alright, alright, since it’s _so_ important to you- they make me… I don’t know. I don’t know the word for it. But my head hurts after them, and I’m all sweaty waking up- not because I’m scared, they just get me burnin’ up. Like, all warm and stuff. But they’re really cool, Sam, like- like they’re compelling, and I feel powerful in them. Like I could take over the world or something!” 

Sam pales. “Is that what you want?” 

Max eyes him. “Why are you being so weird?” 

The dog looks away, hand on the back of his neck. Max stares at him for a moment longer before he frowns. “I think it’d be pretty fun. Taking over the world. I mean, think about it- _Sam and Max: Rulers of the No-Longer Free World!”_

Sam nods a little. It did sound a little fun. At least, in theory. Max sighs at his lackadaisical response, kicking his legs onto the dash. “But, you know… being Freelance Police means we get to wave guns around all willy-nilly, which is also pretty fun and powerful and all that. And we get to help people this way, which is something I know you like to do, too, so it’s a win for us both.” 

For a moment, the car stays rested idly. Max pokes him, and Sam turns his attention slowly back to the lagomorph, neither quite sure of which expression the other is making. 

“You’d choose spending time with me over something as fun and powerful as global domination?” Sam asks, already having heard the answer in his words but asking, anyway. 

Max pushes himself up from his seat and slides over the cupholders, slumping into his lap. “In every universe, Big Guy. Annnnd I take it this is about your Max?” 

Sam shakes his head. “You’re my Max.” 

“Fine, prior-Max or whatever. Did he get weird dreams?” 

The dog reclines his seat back so he and his little buddy can rest easier. He stares up at the ceiling of their car for a moment before speaking. “Not quite. But, Max- can you tell me if you have a dream like that again? Wake me up if you have to.” 

He can practically _feel_ Max roll his eyes, but it's the movement of the lagomorph nodding his head against the dog’s chest that matters more to him. 

For a while, they simply lay there, together- staring up at the ceiling of the DeSoto as though they were gazing up at the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poker Night explains that they still have the Time Machine, and that's how they're getting to the events, but they don't explain if that confirms one ending over the other as canon- so I wrote it in here to connect it with the Crimefighting ending (which I find preferable, because Sam gets to stay where he is, which is where we're already familiar with as the audience). They make a few Devils Playhouse references in those games, such as the card line I included word for word, but every time it's mentioned its by Max who clearly had no idea what he's talking about because he obviously wouldn't have been there for any of the events of TDP.  
> It might also be worth mentioning that Max very clearly never MEANT to turn into an Eldritch Horror, at least not without Sam. He literally says that if he can merge with the god-head, he promises to take Sam with him- even Superego alludes to Max wanting power so long as it didn't cost him Sam (in not so many words). I tried to explain that in a way Max would explain that. TDP gave us the luxury of learning about how much Max cares about Sam by taking away his ability to tell him- I didn't wanna spoil that either. Sorry, rambling. I just have a lot of thoughts. Writing consistently non-emotionally-verbal characters is hard.  
> edit made at 3 am: i was today years old when i remembered that convertible car roofs were a thing 😅

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @ dasicality on insta (also tumblr but I use insta more) if anybody wants to kiss me or something


End file.
